Blog Moratorium

Hey there - Just reminding you all that we'll take a break from blogging the next three weeks. As of Monday, December 15th, you should have three posts and one comment since our last blog check on November 17th.

You won't need to post again until we return from winter break.

No TV???

When the Chicago area was inundated with rain one weekend months ago, our roof leaked and water dripped onto our TV, ruining it. Since then, we have gone without television in our house. I know what you may be thinking--how are we able to live??? But I've found that the essential things I want from TV can be gotten in other ways--I get news from the web, I catch episodes of my favorite shows online and rent DVDs, I listen to Bears games on WBBM. I've found that much of what I used to watch on TV I hardly miss, and I often wonder how I ever had time to watch so much TV. Much of what Thoreau suggests in Walden seems like it couldn't possibly work, but what if we tried it? How much of what we consider "essential" would become irrelevant?

Do we embrace simplicity at NT?

In class today we’ll map out a “typical” New Trier student’s day in order to explore the question posed in the title of this blog post. As you read Thoreau the next week or so, look closely at his ideas on simplifying life and getting in touch with the true necessities and juxtapose his ideas against your typical day at school. Do any of his thoughts resonate with you?

You may also want to set up a time (middle of the day, perhaps?) to complete one of your Transcendentalism maxims so you can accurately evaluate HDT’s ideas in light of how they apply to your life in a typical school day.

And lastly, here’s a Times article on Americans trying to simplify their lives: New York Times.

Can you see yourselves doing this someday?

Emeeeeeeerson Reading Progress?

Now that you've spent some time doing some "deep reading" with Emerson, what are your thoughts on this type of heavy, dense reading? Does it feel extra difficult in light of Nicholas Carr's assertion that digital texts make it more difficult for us to appreciate long, sustained reading? (Carr is the guy who wrote the article, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" Remember him?)

One way to make sense of difficult texts is to share your thoughts on reading strategies. In the next week, post a quick comment to this blog post, a thought on a reading strategy you've found useful for reading R.W.E.

Keep being deep readers, folks. (By the way, is Emerson even reading the book in this picture? Maybe he's in a transcendental state...)

"I have no expectation that any man will read history aright..."

Remember this quote above? It should look familiar (it is, after all, on our blog). Here it is again in full:

I have no expectation that any man will read history aright, who thinks that what was done in a remote age, by men whose names have resounded far, has any deeper sense than what he is doing to-day.

As you all know by now, something happened last night that will resound through history books for the rest of your lives. And as Emerson argues in the quote above, what happened yesterday is history, and you all lived it.

And it's appropriate we celebrate both candidates by giving Senator McCain the stage, too. McCain delivered a magnanimous concession speech in which he identified the historic nature of the recent election. In case you missed it, here it is:

Senator McCain

Tuesday Night Preparation

Early this week we'll continue our discussion of the election by having you visit the New York Times interactive Electoral College map. Here's the link:

Map

The nice thing about the map is if you click on the link titled "Your map" you'll be able to change which states vote red or blue and see the results in Electoral College votes. This website helps illustrate how the process works (a nice connection to the Constitution) and it will also help you anticipate what you should look for as you watch the results Tuesday night. Have fun!

We're all really "red"-blooded Americans after all...

I couldn't believe how many connections there were to our class in Jon Meacham's latest article in Newsweek. He basically argues that America is generally conservative (right of center, to be precise), and that even if the Democrats win BIG, Obama will more effective if he is pragmatic and recognizes that Americans are basically more conservative than liberal. This is especially ironic to me given that Obama has cast himself as the candidate of hope and idealism. But perhaps that's how our political system has been set up from the Revolutionary era... we want to bring someone into power who inspires us and casts a grandiose vision (Declaration of Independence), but then we want a government that can actually get some things done without going too far and taking us out of our comfort zones (Constitution).

The other interesting thing was his agreement with my own observations in class the other day, namely that Americans have this weird love-hate relationship with government and taxes. Perhaps because our Revolution was so steeped in taxation issues, we say "taxes" as if we're referring to STDs. Yet we expect the state to fulfill certain obligations, like war, education, disaster relief, rescuing investment banks... depending on your personal views of what's important. I love Meacham's characterization: "The American relationship with government is so fraught with hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance that it is difficult to discuss with any degree of rationality." Just wait til we get to the Constitution...

An Ideal or Pragmatic Approach?

A hot topic on the campaign trail has been the issue of how to handle ending the war in Iraq, and each candidate seems to take either a pragmatic or ideal position on the issue.

Senator McCain has argued that we should not leave Iraq until we have secured "victory," while Senator Obama has argued that getting involved in Iraq was a mistake all along and that we need to withdraw in a "responsible manner."

One could argue that McCain's answer is an idealist's approach to the issue (victory!) while Obama concedes that mistakes were made and that while we might not be seen as winners, we still need to leave for very good reasons.

But this is just one instance where we see these values (idealism and pragmatism) clash. Where else do you see this conflict in American culture?

Some political road rage?

I was a bit disturbed when reading reports about crowd reactions at McCain events. Not surprisingly, many McCain supporters wanted to see him "fight back" against the Obama campaign. Then other individuals expressed their fear, one saying he was"scared" of an Obama presidency, and another woman saying she couldn't trust him because he's an "Arab". At one point, someone in the crowd yelled "kill him!" Some analysts say no big deal-these political rallies have a tendency to get emotional and passionate, and perhaps bring out sides of us that we wouldn't normally express in public. But isn't this precisely the point? Why is that what we wouldn't say to a person's face in a normal conversation is acceptable at a rally? This underscores the point that people are too easily whipped up into a kind of mob mentality and suspend their rational faculties when they perceive a time of peril. (I think of the hanging scenes in the film version of The Crucible.) Do we really want to excuse this type of public behavior? To his credit, McCain cautioned his followers and expressed respect for his opponent.

I'd like to read some reports regarding if anything similar goes on at Obama rallies, if anyone can find them. Are there people shouting "shoot Palin!" for example?

Guantanamo Update

Check it out:

NY Times article.

The end is near!!!

Did we get your attention? OK, we're not talking about the end of the world, nor are we misquoting The Man-Who-Was-Probably-Lakota from "Res Blues." The "end" we're speaking of is the end of our "Perilous Times" unit.

We'll introduce the essay prompt early this week, but here's a teaser, and an opportunity for pre-writing and accessing some prior knowledge...

What do you know about these three somewhat recent events/topics?
- Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
- Patriot Act II
- The recent bill passed and signed by President Bush this Friday, October 3rd

This isn't a homework assignment we're posting, but if you happen to catch this blog post, give these items some thought.

A little humor during perilous times...

Does the name Carl Linneaus ring a bell? Remember the plant-naming aficionado from Jamaica Kincaid's "In History"?

Well, driving home from work tonight I heard a humorous piece on NPR about Linneaus and the names he came up with for plants. You might find it interesting; here's the link: NPR Radio Piece

Any thoughts on how Kincaid would react to this piece?

"Disastrous" Times?

Is it just me, or does it seem like some governor, mayor, or county board president is declaring a state of emergency in response to some disaster just about every other week these days? Don't get me wrong; I have tremendous sympathy for the victims of the recent hurricanes and the record-setting rains and flooding in the Chicagoland area. But it seems like these "declarations" are happening more and more frequently. Are we living in more "disastrous" times than a few decades ago, or is something else going on here? I wonder if witnessing the failure of government to provide adequate assistance to people who legitimately needed it (i.e. Katrina) has made us extra prone to expecting the government to step in immediately at every crisis. No politician wants to be seen as callous and inept in the face of natural disaster. And now we see huge government bailouts of irresponsible major financial firms because if they failed, it would be a disaster, and everyone would be suffering the consequences of their recklessness. So will this all just feed into a larger expectation that one of government's primary responsibilities is to somehow "rescue" us at every peril?

A Hope Grown in Peril

Here is an audio link from National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" last night.

It tells the non-dominant narrative of those who live in hurricane country. I find it an interesting display of action taken during this perilous time; rather than heeding government and evacuation warnings, the people Johnston describes instead decide to totally ignore their authorities in favor of the hope they hold. This is simply an exposure of another often overlooked school of thought. A bit of culture, if you will. What do you think?

Financial Perilous Times?

Maybe you heard yesterday about several key developments in the financial world: Lehman Brothers (an investment banking firm for over 100 years) filed for bankruptcy, and Bank of America purchased Merrill Lynch (another investment banking firm). These events come on the heels of the federal government bailing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac just last week (two huge mortgage companies -- they hold the majority of mortgages for homes in the country). The feds essentially gave Fannie and Freddie (sounds like a couple from "Happy Days") a loan to make sure they could stay in business.

It's interesting to see how the federal government -- the authority in these perilous times -- reacts to this situation. In some instances they've bailed out companies and given help; in other instances they've let the ebb and flow of capitalism take its course and let companies go under.

Be on the watch for how people react to these perilous times. Look for how Americans see the government's role; look for how Americans deal with the financial pressures. Maybe we'll even see some Puritanical reactions?

What's OUR story?

Recently conservative commentator Peggy Noonan was caught on MSNBC saying that she thought Republican VP pick Sarah Palin was underqualified, stating, "I think they went for this, excuse me, bull—-t about narratives." (Note to politicians and commentators: Check your mic before you utter disparaging profanities on TV.) In fact, it seems this entire election has been more about personal narratives than the issues. Who's better fit to lead, and even more American? The biracial son of a single mom who was raised by his middle-class Kansas grandparents, went to Columbia and Harvard Law on student loans, and passed up a lucrative legal career to become a community organizer and public servant? The heroic POW who comes from a distinguished military family with generations of service to their country, who's spent a lifetime giving back to the country he came to so passionately love while he was languishing in a Vietnamese cell? Or how about the moose-gutting hockey mom, who courageously chose to give birth to a child with Down Syndrome and went back to governing Alaska the very next day?

I won't go into my opinions about why these personal narratives matter, but it does make me wonder about our collective narrative(s). Is there a "storyline" we like to envision when we think about our nation and its history? I think we all carry some version of it, consciously or not. Behind every policy debate there's an implicit "national narrative" that's being promoted. Perhaps that's really how people vote, by choosing the candidate whose personal narrative seems to resonate most with their own vision of the national narrative.

"The past is never dead. It's not even past."

Here's an audio link from National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" show this morning. It details a case against a man who murdered two black nineteen-year-olds in Mississippi in 1964. The man was originally arrested in 2007 -- over thirty years after the murder -- because an elderly KKK (Ku Klux Klan) member came forward with testimony, but the case has been thrown out because a Louisiana court has ruled that the statute of limitations has expired.

Again, this artifact illustrates that "history" -- something we are sometimes tempted to think of as fixed and past -- is always connecting to our lives in the present. Or, as Faulkner argues in the quote above, history "isn't even past."

Mr. Lawler’s Saturday Morning…

Here’s an interesting site that connects with much of our first unit and the work we’ve been doing on evaluating the validity of narratives:

Article

“The Rhetoric and the Reality” tries to fact check claims made by various politicians – from both parties – in the recent Republican and Democratic conventions. In a sense, it illustrates that finding the truth (or most accurate narrative) is an exercise in evaluating claims and evidence from both sides. Check it out, but keep in mind that even this newspaper (“The New York Times”) features bias, just like all newspapers.

An "Asterisk" to School Funding in Illinois?

As we all know, yesterday we had visitors from CPS (parents, students, activists) at the Northfield Campus to protest inequities in school funding in the state of Illinois. They believe that our system of primarily funding a school's budget with property taxes is unfair, and, in essence, leads to better schools in more affluent areas while poorer areas have poorer schools.

In a recent class discussion we asked two questions that tie into this issue: 1 - is public education a right in the United States? and 2 - Is a quality education a right in the United States? We'd all probably answer "yes" to the first question (we are, after all attending and working in a public school), but the second question seems to be the most compelling. If we say "no," then how do we determine who gets the better education? If we say "yes," then how do we go about making sure this is the case?

In general, let's consider Reverend Meeks and the visitors here on Tuesday as individuals offering an alternative voice to this very important issue. Maybe their statement would read, "What to think of school funding for a person like me and all who look like me..."

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